Welcome Home
by Stephanniexo
Summary: Draco turns up on Harry's door step.
1. Chapter 1

Welcome home.

Harry Potter frowned as he set down the book he had been reading on the arm of his chair, ears almost twitching for the sound of the noise that had disturbed him again. He glanced at the clock rested on the mantel piece, eleven o'clock at night. He had almost been dozing in his chair, having been reading for a few hours now. He'd been nice and warm in front of the fire and it had been making him sleepy. That was all before he heard the sharp knock on his front door.

He reached for his book again, thinking he had imagined the whole thing, in his sleepy half conscious state but stopped short when he heard the same sharp knock. He hoisted himself out of his chair slowly and pulled his wand out of the waistband of his jeans and shuffled his way in his socks towards the door. He held his wand up as he unlocked the chain and pulled it open.

"Malfoy!" His wand arm faltered as he saw who was standing on his door step, head hanging lower than normal, a small frown on his face and a bag clutched in his hand, his eyes fixed downwards, at the floor. Harry noticed how he had flinched at the sound of Harry calling him Malfoy, but couldn't bring himself to call him anything else. Harry had never seen him in such a state before and he'd seen him in many different states. His hair was dishevelled and there were dark circles under his eyes. Even his clothes weren't up to their usual standard, his shirt was untucked from his trousers and he'd missed a button halfway down, and his trousers were crumpled and creased.

"Potter," Malfoy said in a hollow voice and nodded while shuffling his feet. Harry hesitated before he moved aside, giving enough room for Malfoy to slip inside, no questions asked. A mixture of curiosity and pity drove Harry to making the decision to let him back inside his house. Malfoy nodded his gratitude and stepped into the hall avoiding his eyes still, looking around him even though it should be more than familiar. Harry closed the door behind him, sealing them both off from the world outside.

"Erm, want to go into the living room?" Harry said, gesturing forward, he shuffled past him and led him into the cosy dimly lit room, snatching up his book as he went, closing it and storing it in the bookcase across the room.

Malfoy awkwardly shuffled around the door, alternating between rubbing the back of his neck and sweeping his thumb over the finger that used to hold his wedding band. Harry gestured for him to sit on the couch, and took his previous seat by the fire. He tucked his legs up and under himself and watched Malfoy from across the room. Malfoy couldn't decide whether he wanted to cross his legs or not and Harry had to refrain from sniggering at his obvious unease. It was just so weird to see him so uncontrolled and uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to ask any personal questions Malfoy." Harry said and ignored the twitch Malfoy gave at the sound of his surname. "All I need to know is why you choose me. Why did you choose to come here?" Harry said softly after a few minutes of awkward silence.

"That's why. Because I knew you wouldn't ask questions," Malfoy said, his focus on his shoes, that Harry now realised were scuffed at the toes.

"Are you sure that's all?" Harry asked his focus unfaltering towards Malfoy. His eyes were trained on every little movement that he was making. Like the way that his fingers were messaging where his wedding band used to be, and the way that his leg was jerking randomly, nervously.

"Yes." Malfoy said loudly with little to no conviction. He looked up at Harry, dropping his hands to both knees and sitting back in his chair, Harry could only assume that it was an attempt to make it look as if he wasn't lying. Harry knew him better than that.

"Liar," he said and their eyes met for the first time since Malfoy had stepped inside the house. Harry knew exactly what he was really feeling from just that look. He knew what he was going to say before he even thought about it, never mind said it. He was already, up and out of his chair and half way across the room before Malfoy formulated the words.

"Because I made a mistake. Because I miss you," Malfoy said quietly but with no quiver to his voice and sharing eye contact with Harry the entire time. Harry perched on the edge of the couch beside him and took his empty left hand and threaded his bare fingers through Malfoy's.

"That's all I needed Draco. You look tired," Harry said. Draco blinked once and nodded uncertainly, clearly taken aback by the sudden attention.

"Exhausted," he whispered, his eyes darting across Harry's face focusing on the smile that had appeared on his lips in the past couple of seconds.

"You know where the bedroom is, I'll be up in a minute," Harry said, pulling the other man up to his feet. He squeezed his hand before dropping it and stepping over to the fireplace, to start extinguishing the flames.

"That's all I needed to say?" Draco asked from the door, where he had stopped, slightly confused and uncertain, in case this was all some kind of trick or trap, some kind of payback.

"There is no point in messing around with fancy words and too many apologies. I know you mean it and I can see you're broken. Why waste time with words that don't even need to be said, when we already know the truth?" Harry said. Draco nodded and shifted the bag from one hand to the other. He left the room and Harry turned back to the fire, extinguishing it with a flick of his wand.

Harry shuffled around the room, socks sliding on the wooden floors while he plumped cushions and extinguished candles. He was contently warm and back to feeling delightfully sleepy now that he knew that his house was to feel like a home again, that it was fuller because its rightful occupants were both back in it.

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><p>Okay well this probably took me three hours to write, roughly, which to be honest is pretty damn good for me. Of course these three hours also included having something to eat and various browsing of the internet. It's not perfect, as I just finished it and have posted it but it's about as perfect as I need it to be. It's too long to be a drabble [or is it though? I don't know] but too short to be a one shot [Again, maybe it's not] so whatever you want to call this, here it is.<p>

There I was working away on Home is where the heart is and this idea popped into my head and I thought I better write it before the novelty wore off. I'm still on that first chapter of the new story, it's just about breeching 5,000 words, but I'm almost finished it. I could easily [very easily] split it into three chapters but I promised my chapters would be longer and there would be less of them this time around. I do try to keep my promises. Plus I find that fics are easier to read when there are less but longer chapters, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, enjoy.


	2. Chapter 2

I know I confused a lot of people with the first part of this, and that wasn't really my intention, so I thought I should explain. Everything is revealed in this part, hopefully.

This was surprisingly easy to write. If I'm ever a loss as to what to write I think I could easily come back to this as an established relationship fic, something I've never tried before. I really enjoyed writing it. For now though this is the end.

Enjoy.

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><p>Harry woke the next morning before Draco, which was a rarity in itself. He smiled at the slumbering man next to him and made sure to pull the covers up and around him before he left the room and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. He had to catch himself before he only pulled out one mug for himself, going back into the cupboard to get the second that had stayed there far too long for his liking.<p>

He pottered around the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as he could, knowing from experience that the walls were incredibly thin in the house and that the noises travelled easily around it, and that Draco did not react well to being woken up before he was ready. He popped some bread in the toaster while he waited for the kettle to boil on the stove, and went over to the window to collect the prophet from the owl that waited there patiently on him.

He had managed to sit down at the kitchen table, with a cup of coffee and his toast, and flicked to the third page of the paper before, shuffling feet joined him in the room. He looked up from the paper and smiled at the bleary eyed Draco that stood in the doorway.

"Kettle's not long boiled, should still be hot enough," he said softly, turning back to the paper in front of him. He watched in his peripheral vision as Draco followed in his footsteps, pottering around the kitchen, pouring boiling water into the mug that was set out for him, and slotting bread into the toaster. He finally joined him at the table and Harry pushed the sports section in his direction. Draco mumbled a thanks and the house was silent except from the slurps from mugs, rustles of the newspaper and crunches of the toast. It felt as if it was back to the way it was before Draco left.

It wasn't long before Harry had finished his bit of the paper and he set it aside and sat sipping his coffee. He knew that they would have to talk about what happened the night before, no matter what he said, it needed to be addressed out loud, but he was prepared to wait until Draco was ready to do so, whenever that would be.

Draco had also finished his section of the paper and they sat in a stretched out silence together, small sips of coffee and the occasional car going by on the road outside the only sounds that penetrated it. They didn't look at each other, just at certain bits on the kitchen wall or in Harry's case, out of the window. Harry wondered if Draco was waiting on him saying something, but guessed that he was actually probably just trying to form the right words and string a couple of sentences together. He was prepared to sit there for as long as it took, he needed to hear the words as much as Draco needed to say them, no matter how much he pretended he didn't.

"I was scared," Draco finally said, his voice reasonably steady and just loud enough to be heard. Harry looked over at him and sat forward in his seat, leaning his elbows on the table, hands wrapped around his half empty mug of coffee. He didn't want to say anything in case he put Draco off so he stayed quiet.

"I was scared of what was happening between us. I was scared of hurting anyone. I was scared of what people would think. I was scared of you- of myself, of what could happen, that's why I left" Draco said. Harry smiled softly, but Draco didn't see him because he wasn't looking at Harry, he was peering into his mug as if there was something other than his coffee dregs in there.

"And then, as soon as I walked back into the Manor, back to Astoria and Scorpius, I realised I didn't belong there. Not anymore. I should have realised that as soon as I fell into bed with you that I would never call the Manor my home again. It took me longer than it should have to be able to get enough courage to finally admit that to Astoria, only to find that she already knew. Figures," Draco said. He sighed and put his mug on the table and turned to look at Harry. Harry nodded, knowing anything he said would just make things awkward.

"She offered to keep as we were. She said the Manor was big enough for us both to carry on and do our own thing, with the facade for everyone else. I couldn't do that though. Not to her, and most importantly not to you," Draco said. Harry reached across the table and took his hand that had been circling around the rim of his mug. He laced their fingers but still didn't risk saying anything, he knew Draco wasn't finished yet.

"I told her to stay at the Manor with Scorpius and I thought-I thought I'd stay here with you, if you'd let me," Draco said watching their hands tangled together frowning at the difference in skin tone.

"Of course," Harry said softly, smiling. "This was your home the minute you stepped back through the door, and I don't want you to ever think other wise," he said. Draco nodded, but still wasn't looking at him, only thoughtfully at their hands instead.

They sat in silence again and Harry slowly stroked the back of Draco's hand with his thumb. Draco was frowning and Harry was watching him, trying to figure out what he was thinking about, he thought he might have a fair idea.

"What about Scorpius?" Harry asked at last and the flicker of Draco's eyes as he looked up from their hands at Harry told him he had been correct in guessing what was going through his head.

"Astoria agreed to joint custody. Month about, so it's fair, I-I didn't think about-" Draco said, stopping half way through his sentence, swallowing hard and casting a look around the kitchen, wondering about space and whether Harry would even be okay with that, having a kid around the house for once.

"We'll turn the spare bedroom into his, he can make it is own when he's old enough to decide on colours and what furnishings he wants," Harry said, smiling again. Draco blinked rapidly and Harry noticed a little moisture there, welling in the corners of his eyes. "Draco, I love you. Every single part of you and that includes Scorpius too. Stop thinking I'm going to turn you away. You're home again, that's all that matters to me,"

"I just- I'm just angry at myself for being such a coward, for being so scared before," Draco said.

"If you were a coward you wouldn't have come back. It takes as much courage, if not more, to admit you made a mistake than to do anything heroic," Harry said. He squeezed his hand and Draco gave him a watery smile, before cursing himself under his breath for looking like such a pansy.

Harry shook his head, kissed the hand he had been holding before letting go and standing up, collecting their plates and mugs. Draco watched him take them over to the sink and took the opportunity to pull himself together. He felt more comfortable sitting on the hard wooden kitchen chair than he ever did on the soft satin ones at the Manor. He was home and he had his Harry back, and he couldn't think of even one more thing he would wish for, he didn't need to when he had everything in the man across from him.

"I love you too," he whispered and even though he could only see Harry's profile he knew he heard him, for he started grinning while he charmed the dishes to clean themselves.


End file.
